Civil War statue on Martha's Vineyard reopens old wounds

By Beth TreffeisenCape Cod Times

Sunday

Apr 21, 2019 at 10:20 PMApr 21, 2019 at 10:20 PM

A prominently placed Civil War statue has become a point of contention, with the Oak Bluffs Board of Selectmen to again discuss on Tuesday a request by the local NAACP chapter to remove two plaques honoring Confederate soldiers. “It’s hurtful,” Erik Blake, president of the local NAACP chapter and the town’s police chief, said of the statue itself. “It is unnecessary for it to be there.”

OAK BLUFFS — A prominently placed Civil War statue has become a point of contention, with the Oak Bluffs Board of Selectmen to again discuss on Tuesday a request by the local NAACP chapter to remove two plaques.

“It’s hurtful,” Erik Blake, president of the local NAACP chapter and the town’s police chief, said of the statue itself. “It is unnecessary for it to be there.”

The statue depicts a Union soldier, but one plaque commemorates Charles Strahan, a former Confederate soldier who later moved to Martha’s Vineyard, who worked to erect the monument. The second plaque states that “the chasm is closed” and that Union veterans and citizens of the island honor those who fought as Confederate soldiers as well.

The issue emerged at a Board of Selectmen meeting in March when NAACP supporters demanded the plaques be removed while local veterans asked that the plaques stay put. The board members will discuss the issue further on Tuesday, and possibly determine how to proceed, said Gail Barmakian, the board chairwoman.

One idea is to hold a special forum to discuss the topic, Barmakian said. Others have wanted to bring it to a town vote. Members of the NAACP board would like the two plaques placed at the Martha’s Vineyard Museum, according to Blake.

But a number of veterans want the plaques to be left alone and possibly an information plaque added, said Jo Ann Murphy, the commander of the American Legion on Martha’s Vineyard.

“It is our history whether or not you like it,” Murphy said. “We are taking down monuments of our history instead of trying to explain them. Maybe this is our opportunity to teach to what happened.”

The history of the monument — located near a ferry terminal — does offer some insights, according to A. Bowdoin Van Riper, research librarian at the museum.

Strahan was living in Maryland when the Civil War broke out, according to Van Riper. At the age of 22, he crossed the border into Virgina and joined the Confederate army, was wounded in battle and survived the Battle of Gettysburg in 1863. In the 1880s Strahan, for an unknown reason, moved to Martha’s Vineyard and bought a local newspaper, Van Riper said. Within about three years, that newspaper announced its plan for a Memorial Day celebration, but local Union veterans promised to boycott the event if a former Confederate soldier, such as Strahan, showed up.

Strahan sent a reporter to the Memorial Day event instead, and he published a favorable story about the Union veterans, Van Riper said. Soon after, Strahan began a fundraising campaign for the statue honoring the Union veterans, using a percentage of the newspaper’s sales and finally his own money to finish it. At the dedication ceremony for the statue, though, Strahan gave a speech about his hope that one day Union sympathizers in town would return the favor by honoring Confederate veterans.

Then, in 1925, when Strahan was dying and with the ranks of Union veterans dwindling every year, his request was honored with the two plaques being installed, said Van Riper.

At this time, Van Riper said, reconciliation between war veterans was going on and applauded elsewhere in the country. But so was the start of the Jim Crow era and the Ku Klux Klan, and segregation, he said.

“We have a ton of work to do in this country when it comes to race relations,” Blake said.

Blake, who is white, said he hadn’t noticed the statue until members of the town’s African American community shared their stories about how they felt about it. The chasm wasn’t closed when the monument was erected in 1891, or when the plaques were installed in 1925, nor today in 2019, Blake said.

“I don’t care what they do with them,” said Clennon King, a seasonal visitor and a Boston-based documentary filmmaker. “Black folks getting off that ferry shouldn’t be greeted by Confederate plaques.”

In 2017, he wrote an op-ed piece in a local newspaper outlining why he wanted the plaques removed. Since then, he has been pushing the idea on social media and elsewhere including attending the March Board of Selectmen's meeting.

From a moral standpoint it is the right thing to do, King said, but also from a fiscal standpoint.

Martha's Vineyard is the summer playground of the Black elite, he said. Although there is no way to quantify the amount of tourism dollars brought to the island by African Americans, Nancy Gardella, the executive director of Martha’s Vineyard Chamber of Commerce, believes it is very significant.

In 2016, in total, visitors brought in $161 million, Gardella said.

“Money is impactful,” she said. “But do the right thing because it’s the right thing.”

— Follow Beth Treffeisen on Twitter: @BTreffeisenCCT.

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